Chapter Text
The familiar tingle that ran down his spine was all he needed to know a RESET had occurred.
It was easy to miss, he had a few times, but this time he had been expecting it for a while. In fact, it somewhat came as a relief to finally let it happen instead of just waiting. Sans laid back on his bed, fingers interlaced on his ribcage, eyelids closed. He could afford to spare a few seconds more just lying there because really, what’s the rush?
Admittedly, he took longer and longer to get up at the beginning of every RESET ever since they started. Sure, it was important to get to Frisk and figure out what had happened to them in the previous timeline, but the kid was smart enough to lay low until he arrives to meet them at the start of Snowdin’s forest.
Frisk. The human. The kid who kept turning back time and making a big mess of the Underground.
Well, not really. If there was anything that could be qualified as a mess, it’d be the skeleton himself. It wasn’t easy handling the fact that he was the only one aware of time restarting. Paranoia and skepticism was Sans’ everyday obstacles back then, but he learned to keep it to himself.
He mostly watched out for any changes and kept track of everyone’s whereabouts. It was how he found out that Frisk was behind everything. Every single monster had a set path and schedules they followed without missing a beat, but Frisk. Frisk was no constant.
One time they’d be petting dogs to spare them, the other they’d be throwing sticks. One time they’d spend millions on a Spider Bake Sale, the other they’d continue without so much as a single doughnut purchase. It was like they already knew what was going to happen; what the easiest and safest route to take was throughout their journey Underground. It was hard for Sans not to realize Frisk was the anomaly.
Sans didn’t do anything about it, though. The kid wasn’t doing anything wrong. They were willing to get hurt, but they weren’t too keen on hurting others and for that, Sans thought they were pretty cool. One thing he’d noticed though, was that RESETs instantly occured seconds after Frisk’s death.
Regretfully he had been a witness to a few of them.
He kept a closer eyesocket on the human child then, even before his friend behind the door asked him to. Just a few deflecting of bullets with his magic and causing some ‘inconveniences’ for other monsters so they wouldn’t bother the kid. The cycle kept going, and eventually Sans settled into a comfortable routine, never really thinking about the future but instead on what prank he should play on Papyrus next.
But then, Frisk broke the barrier.
Never in a million years had Sans thought that the day would come. He had never felt more alive feeling the sun on his face alongside his friends and family; the hollowed feeling in his ribcage after so many dull RESETs filled with warmth as he trailed the colors across the sky.
Looking at Frisk back then, he was pretty damn proud.
Monsters were quick to settle on the Surface. After a week of negotiation, the humans finally agreed to prepare a campsite for the monsters as they slowly moved in from the mountain into the city located below. It’d take time, but any start was a good one. Things were looking up for the future of both races.
Until the riots began and everything went to shit. The campsite became a main target. Curfews and extra precautions were made to ensure safety, but it wasn’t enough. Belongings were stolen. Fires happened out of nowhere. Monsters disappeared.
Frisk looked tired half the time back then, as if they were ready to give up. Being Ambassador was more than just shaking hands and signing sheets as they came to realize. The final straw though, was the execution of monsters at gunpoint when a small group infiltrated their camp at dawn. The amount of dust was suffocating.
Sans wasn’t surprised to find himself back at his old house Underground a few seconds after that.
But it’s fine. Frisk will get them back to the Surface again, and they’d be extra careful this time. He wanted to see the sky again, the stars and the moon and his brother getting excited about the many varieties of pasta. Sans could hardly wait.
…
It was a week before Frisk exited the Ruins, hands clutching their sweater and snot running down their nose. Sans offered them a napkin instead of a handshake that timeline.
Frisk would usually breeze by Snowdin within an hour, but they seemed to be taking their sweet time with the puzzles. Their date with Papyrus lasted for hours, and in the end Frisk spent the night on their couch. They’ve never done that before.
It wasn’t until the second week Frisk stayed in Snowdin did Sans did something about it. They spent their days sleeping on the couch whenever anyone was home, and never even left when the brothers went out. It was easy enough to confront them about the RESETs, and why they had suddenly stopped.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was wrong. Frisk blamed themselves for everything that had happened, as if their actions had led the monsters straight to danger. Surprisingly, Frisk took the news about Sans knowing about RESETs pretty well, but completely unraveled when he asked about the Surface.
Sans spent the entire night with a broken child in his arms and Nice Creams smeared over his hoodie.
It had been months since that night. Two years give or take if RESETs were taken out of account. By then they’ve reached the Surface three times, and their longest record was about ten months. Though it seemed everything had started over again. No biggie. The two of them can try something else to get to the eleventh month this time around.
Sans sighed and finally opened his eyesockets to stare at the ceiling. Very much awake at that point but not really feeling up to it just yet.
Of course, his brother had other plans. “SANS, YOU LAZYBONES! WAKE UP BEFORE BREAKFAST GETS COLD!”
Sans gave a breathless chuckle; that voice always greeted him at the start of every timeline without fail. “m’comin, pap. what’s for breakfast?” He knew what the answer was, but it never hurt to ask.
“SPAGHETTI! BREAKFAST IS THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY, AFTER ALL. AND WHAT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN SPAGHETTI!? NYEHEH!” Papyrus replied as a loud clang rang out from the kitchen. Sans took that as a cue to get ready for the day.
Shuffling past his infamous trash tornado, he grabbed his hoodie from where it was draped over his treadmill and shuffled into his slippers. It was a minor comfort, having his favorite hoodie at the beginning of each reset. He made his way to the door and reached out a bony hand to grab the doorknob—
Only to grasp air as a tingle ran down his back. Sans blinked in confusion before sitting up with a jolt to check his surroundings. Hoodie over his treadmill, slippers by the end of his bed…
A reset? So soon?
Sans could barely register it happening when his brother called out from downstairs. “SANS, YOU LAZYBONES! WAKE UP BEFO—”
Tingle.
He was starting to shake. What was happening to the kid to make them reset so early in a timeline? He’d barely shot out of bed before another reset struck, making him dizzy for a moment as he opened his eyes to see that he was lying flat on his bed again. What the fuck? Were they doing this on purpose? What the hell, Frisk?
At that point he decided to see how far the kid would go, and that was when he sensed three consecutive resets happen, each one five to ten seconds apart, his spine getting prickly after every single one of them. Five resets in a row? Or was it six?
He nervously gripped the sheets and braced himself for another, but apparently the kid was done. Sans could only blink dazedly at the crack in his ceiling.
“SANS, YOU LAZYBONES! WAKE UP BEFORE BREAKFAST GETS COLD!”